No, Nicks is not a skill position player and as such you can't select him in your upcoming fantasy draft. He's just arguably the best interior offensive lineman in the game. No big deal.

At least the Tampa Bay Buccaneers felt that way when they gave the prized free agent a five-year, $47.5 million deal that included $31 million in guaranteed money. That made him the highest-paid guard and one of the highest-paid linemen in the NFL—only a couple of left tackles make more—and is as good an indication as any of the value that several teams thought he would bring to their team when they bid for his services last offseason.

Despite all of that, his recent comments weren't even a blip on the national television or radio radar. That's a mistake. Read them for yourself when Nicks responded to a question about his nagging left big toe injury that has limited his practice time thus far:

“I will have to deal with it my whole life,” Nicks told reporters. “Honestly, it is not 100 percent, yet. I plan on playing some this next preseason game and obviously, the third one. We will see how it goes.

“I have all the confidence in the world I will be back to playing,” Nicks added. “I will just have to deal with it my whole life. I would lie if I told you it didn’t affect me at all. It affects the way I walk, the way I stand around. I have to stand a certain kind of way. It is something I just have to deal with. I don’t want to get into taking painkillers and not knowing if it is hurting.”

Whoa. If you can't see just how significant those comments are for both Nicks and the Buccaneers, I don't know what to tell you. Nicks is a human anvil that is built like a refrigerator and the type of dominator at the point of attack that the Bucs thought could bolster their ground game with Doug Martin.

His comments about having issues when he walks or just stands makes me wonder how effective he'll be if he can take the field—and even if he does, how long will this guy with the $31 million in guarantees continue to play?

Two important things to note are that turf toe injuries can he debilitating, and once a player starts talking about an injury that will affect him the rest of his life, there is a strong tendency for that player to not play for very long after that. I can sympathize with Nicks on both accounts.

Turf toe ended the careers of Hall of Famers like Jack Lambert and Deion Sanders, so it's nothing to snicker at. For some reason, they are also extremely persistent injuries that never seem to go away. I had a minor case in 2004, and the Buffalo Bills trainers put a steel insole in my shoe and taped my toe up every practice. I never missed a snap, yet it still bothers me and I get sharp pains in my toe from time to time.

I don't know how much pain Nicks is in right now, but based on the amount of time he's missed—he sat out the final nine games last season because of the injury—I can tell him that his instincts about it affecting the rest of his life are dead on.

I can also tell this is a story not only to keep an eye on but deserves a lot more attention than it has gotten thus far.

Ross Tucker is a 2001 Princeton graduate who played seven years in the NFL for five different teams before retiring in 2008. He is currently the host of "The Opening Drive" weekdays from 8-11 a.m. ET on SiriusXM NFL Radio.